1.Field of the Invention
The invention relates to a suspended central module for a modular and scalable vehicle for transporting a load consisting of at least one standardized ISO shipping container or a payload of several metric tons.
The invention also relates to a modular and scalable vehicle comprising at least one such suspended central module.
The invention also relates to a train of vehicles comprising at least one such modular and scalable vehicle.
The present invention falls within the field of heavy handling, which means payloads of several metric tons at least, notably containers, or even heavy and bulky components such as elements of ships, bridge joists, alternators, rockets or the like, at port, airport, railway, road or hybrid installations, or even at assembly sites.
Patent Applications FR 04 52208 and FR 07 56921 by the same applicant disclose heavy transport vehicle designs which, in particular, allow a tractor vehicle to be converted into a trailer, or vice versa, or alternatively which are able to incorporate, for a specific need, additional functionalities by quickly adding dedicated modules thus allowing the operator to avoid having to tie up large numbers of special facilities that are used only rather infrequently.
The problem of transporting very large sized loads, or alternatively loads of highly specialized shapes, which requires the use of suitably sized transport vehicles, often arises. There is therefore the paradox of the need to organize abnormal loads in order, unladen, to transport specialized handling means that will later be used, again in the form of an abnormal load, to transport the payload. This problem is not confined to the road-transport environment but of course affects any site where the routing of a special vehicle runs into constraints regarding its covering of the ground, its passage under fixed installations or power cables, or into traffic priorities that do not allow the highway or the area to be encumbered for lengthy periods. Naturally, the problem of storing the special vehicles is just as acute, because of their volume. Quite specifically, in a port environment, the area available is accounted for and is allocated as a matter of priority to the payload and to the ships in transit.
Certain payloads that have to be carried may weigh as much as several hundred metric tons. Transport vehicles that are very generously engineered, either in terms of their carrying capacity in terms of weight, or in terms of their particular dimensions, are chronically underused and are difficult to make profitable, or even represent a prohibitively high hourly rate. Getting them onto the desired site also, most of the time, requires an excess width abnormal load which proves to be a particularly lengthy and costly exercise.
Special-purpose drive means may also be required, particularly in combinations of tractor vehicles and braking vehicles within one train of vehicles.
With a view to multifunctionality and autonomy, for example in terms of the equipment carried at a port or a dockyard, it is desirable for such tasks to be able to be assigned handling equipment that is engineered for ordinary missions, such as the transportation of containers, which have not been particularly over-engineered.